


Half a Heart

by zaynyboy



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: timing: after TMH tour
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-15
Updated: 2014-09-15
Packaged: 2018-02-17 11:24:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,306
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2307878
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zaynyboy/pseuds/zaynyboy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's just Harry holding on to ridiculous things like Zayn's sweaters and rings and his old USA bandana that still smells like pineapple tobacco from those sunset-to moonlight-to sunrise balcony nights.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Half a Heart

Harry tediously rolls over the mattress for what it's been like the twentieth-plus time, tangled between the mashed sheets to peek over the quilts corner and grunt in his pillow, frustrated and eyes rolling as he couldn’t believe that only a half an hour has passed since he last took a glance at the yellow neon numbers shining strikingly in the electric clock.  Three am, it was three am and his eyelids were almost swallowing in fire from the weight of his weary lashes, yet he hadn’t managed to muzzle his mind to a long waited silence and fall asleep.

Stupid jetlag. That’s what he always told himself and told to others and maybe at times it wasn’t a lie. But tonight, just two nights after the tour had ended and there he was, in his unfinished house that still had paint spots on walls and boxes full of his old stuff scattered around the room, everything felt too odd and too out of the place. Moon outside too round as if someone had drawn it in the sky with a compass and the light of it unnaturally bright; the smell of his new place too unfamiliar and so far away from homelike that it was almost painfully clear that it’s not the jetlag. It’s the silence and repose he was craving for so much before, but when it came like this it was no relief, but an emptiness.

He straightens himself up with a following mumbled swear line thrown under his breath and removes the sheets to blindly reach for his sweats that he'd left at the end of the bed. The naked the better - that still worked. Well, sort of. Harry frowns, facing the black velvet sky and shrinks from the contrast of dark and light that oozes out from the sky line behind the enormous glass wall on the right side of his bed. He could call himself insane, but even the stars looked differently here than in any other corner of the world they had been for the past couple of months. Like he had flown to another planet, the walls of the room too tight and the windows too wide.

Harry lazily slips on the sweats and walks over the kitchen that, for now, was the only finished room in his place and it felt slightly better to be there. The green paint on cupboards and the condiment set his mother gave him as a moving in present worked as a tiny consolation, a tiny touch of home. 

He makes himself a cup of tea and almost spurs out a little laugh when freezes at the third spoon of sugar, holding it in the air right above the steam of the water as he couldn’t recall if he actually needed it or not. It would probably seem ridiculous to anybody else that you can't remember those things by yourself, how you wanted your tea or if two pillows would or wouldn't be too much for your damaged back. But the thing is, lately there have been so many people who have told him what he needs or what he _should_ need, that somewhere in between the dense clouds of advice and pushy suggestions, Harry may have lost it; lost the track and border line of what he needs and what he actually _wants_.

What Harry supposedly needs, what he  _should_  need anyway, is something regular and safe, that bit of normality and consistency that is always missing in his life. A strong hand that would pull him away from trouble and pain, from those who act as if his heart would be made of paper. Someone who recognizes the difference between a tiredness and an absolute exhaustion in his eyelids. One that doesn’t ask that much of him as Harry is usually the one giving his everything on a silver plate.

Someone who would pull him down from time to time, keep him safe, keep him completed. A realness, logic maybe. Not another mystery or fate, not a soul mate or any of these things you always hear in movies, but can never find the right definitions for. His life is a mess, a beautiful mess that has the rage of emotions comparable to a roller coaster or a rainbow or whatever. The amplitude is not what matters though, because what really matters is how do you keep yourself sane in such life as the five of them had. Amazing and hectic. A chaos where you learn to find your own anchors that won't let you fade way in the craziness. 

But what Harry wants is.

Well.

Most of the time he has no clue of what he actually wants from all of this and it's not like it's a bad thing, really. A terrifying? Definitely.

After all, it’s a constant sprint and all he can do, is to enjoy it as much as he can and so he does. The thing that they've repeatedly said in interviews, that they were there to have fun, at least while people would still love them and the journey is going further. And it wouldn't be Harry if he wouldn't take and pull all of it - the chances and events, every other opportunity fame can hand you, he would be there to catch and swallow it. So he keeps running and tries to never look back so there wouldn’t be much of a chance to stop and take a breath and that is probably also where he lost it, that arrow with the right direction flying out of his heart. He didn’t know what day is it, he just went to do things. And he didn’t have a clue of what he wanted until he missed it. So yeah, that was probably the first time he felt it, the need, the requirement after Zayn being slightly different than it used to be. And from slightly different to inexplicably rabid. 

Harry isn’t sure when or how it happened, when he first realized that he wants Zayn, wants him in the most indescribable way. Maybe he felt it more when he was missing him, when Zayn wasn’t around that there’s just this thing. This thing when room doesn’t feel completed because there isn't his presence, his tuneful laugh or the bony body, curled somewhere in the corner, watching things from aside as he did. Or maybe, on the contrary, it was when he was right there, a fingertip away, but still not close enough. Like sitting next to him, but not being able to brush their knees together or have a simple, hidden touch of skin.  But it’s not like Zayn would be bad for him, no. How could he, though, when Zayn owned an ability to revive the spirit of happiness in Harry in less than a few breaths or when Zayn has always, _always_ been there for him, by his side and soul. Kept that sort of an invisible shield of protection over his head and learned to sew the peaces of Harry's heart up in one, no needles in use, just smooth kisses and the warm, honeyed string of his voice. So it's crazy to think that someone who can glue your broken peaces with such ease can also shatter them effortlessly, without even knowing it.

It’s that sort of an absurd craziness and anxiety that Zayn causes in Harry that doesn’t compare to any madness that he’s ever been through. And that’s quite a big statement for someone like Harry Styles and his experiences of crazy.

‘Cause you want it or no, but Zayn would still be that person who looks at you under the bush of his extreme length lashes like he’s going to kiss you while passing over the breakfast Kellogg’s pack or patting your clavicle in a good night greeting; all listless and heavenly soft. And then the other day Harry could hear him humming one of his all time favorite songs while he's showering and he can’t. He just can’t stop wondering if it’s because of him, if Zayn’s looking at everyone like that and if other’s favorite songs stuck in his head like that as well. If he’s longing, thinking, dreaming of Harry from time to time and if, after all, he feels that a part of Harry’s heart has found a warm and comfy place somewhere in Zayn’s chest.

And if at times, for a while, even for a week or so, he succeeded to ignore it all, to make himself feel lost in the rest of the world and skip glances that lead to Zayn's eyes, magnetizing with his own, then when it came back it did with a bang, a punch you could say. Zayn kept coming back and then disappearing, like he’s someone else each time or maybe it was just Harry, trying to look at him like he’s only  _someone_  again so it’s not the same old game, the one he kept losing all along. Or maybe it was because Zayn has countless sides of him, not even moods, but actual personalities. And whenever Harry thought that he’s fallen for him deeply and utterly, he’s suddenly someone else the morning after and it’s like a blank page over again.

So his heart gets ripped over once and twice and for so many times that Harry stopped counting them a while ago, but the thing that probably makes him weaker in each of them is that he leaves a part of himself with Zayn every time he hits that bottom phase, when his fingers are itching for touches. He’d make it all playful, as a joke while the night goes, but whenever Zayn falls asleep with his head rested in Harry’s lap, he just wants to shake him by his wide shoulders in despair, beg him to stay like that forever. Then, they could spend weeks in a complete blankness again, Harry looking after Zayn’s eyes in the room, searching for a simple sign that he’s also like that, missing and craving for the other’s essence, but it’s never there. Not the way it was before anyway. And just like that, it’s emptiness again. A foolish feeling that every touch ever was an imagination, every skipped breath – a dream, an illusion maybe.   

And if not for those few things he used to borrow from Zayn, Harry would probably still feel like a floating balloon, blowing the air out of himself every other night when they’re apart and when Harry isn’t doing something, being away from his own mind.

So Harry doesn’t think much when he digs down into his unpacked suitcase to take out the black sweater he borrowed from Zayn a few months ago, when they had just hit the road. He never asked for it back, Harry thought, he had forgot until one morning, Zayn swept the tip of his nose lightly over Harry’s shoulder just minutes after he had taken it off and said something about recognizable cologne. And maybe Harry should’ve given it back then, but the smile Zayn had when he walked past him didn’t sign about him wanting it back, more like a pleasant, almost satisfied one. So Harry kept it, hide it under his pillow for some empty nights like these.

He puts it on and the smell of it so warm, so soothing. Signalizing to Harry's entire insides of home so strongly that Harry wonders if it’s really just the aroma of Zayn’s old cologne that makes him feel like that. Because it’s suddenly something way more and the walls of the room not so tight and the hole in his chest not like an opened wound anymore, more like a bruise that’s crowding together.

The sheets have gone back to cold again when Harry climbs back in his bed so he curls up in the sweater as much as he can, before puts cautions over his shoulders and hides his nose in the collar of it. He breaths in deeply and it reaches his heart as well as his brain then, the smell of memories. Smells like the tour and Zayn’s tobacco and the cherry tea he used to make for Harry because Anne once told that it was the easiest way to get him to sleep when he was a kid. Most of the moments were shared at night time which is probably why the nights are the worst for Harry now, being alone and being aware that there were times when there was no holes or pieces, his heart all in one.

The midnight talks - an integral part of every city they've been now. Topics circling in a mad range, from that kind of nonsense like the best sort of M&M’s to the world’s greatest places they've been to or still dream of visiting. Biggest dreams and the secret disappointments. The important things. The things that make you feel naked when telling them but the bareness of it so pleasant that Harry isn’t sure if there’s any other of his childhood stories that he hadn’t told Zayn about. If there’s any other fear he hasn’t shared with him, anything that would bother him so much that he would crawl up to Zayn’s side in the middle of a night even if he’s asleep, and just take a look at him. Telling him those things with his eyes, Zayn’s deep sleep exhales being more supportive than anyone’s concerned faces.

So, if what Harry needs is an entirety and integrity then Zayn is so far from that path that it’s almost ridiculous how could he want him so much. That heart of his, so far from complete, that the pieces of it seem to fit in Zayn too perfectly to be strong enough and gather them back to himself. And it’s not like you can even take back what’s given through talks and laughs and lately enough, even tears.

And even if Zayn does remind him that he wants three instead of two sugars in his morning coffee and puts two or three pillows under his head if he falls asleep on tough surfaces so his neck wouldn’t kill him a few hours later, it would still never fulfill the spaces of what Harry’s heart really wants.

Harry sort of has accepted it now. How he's created this situation on his own, a one way tunnel with Zayn occasionally being the light at the end of it and then often reshaping in a gray mist, leaving him cold and lost. And just when Harry should run and hide from it as fast as he can, he still wants to breathe Zayn in, even though, all it ever did was taking the air out of his lungs. Harry subconsciously reaches for his phone to unlock it and stare down at the lock screen hollowly, the Miami view from his balcony still there - dark purple sky with orange shadows of the palms across the street - it still gives him shivers. Not that much because of the sky coloring, but the memories of the night. The picture reminding him that he’s not mad, not yet at least, that sometimes dreams really did turn into real touches, real actions.

He searches after Zayn's number and holds his finger on it for a while, almost laughs when thinks of how many steps in a row he’s taking back now, how he shouldn’t, how he promised himself that he won’t. But it’s 3am and it’s all that he can see now, above the blurry sleepiness and pain and emptiness, the strain of some sort of chance to fall asleep is one phone call away. One familiar voice away.

So Harry doesn’t think much, again, as it comes to Zayn and when in six long seconds there's no answer, he thinks, thank god, ‘cause what was he even expecting? Then, after the seventh beep Zayn finally picks up and Harry’s jaw drops as well as his heart.

Zayn’s voice so dry and bare from night’s fatigue that Harry almost drops his phone. He sounds exhausted and so wearily fragile that it's impossible to hide the guiltiness creeping upon his chest. But above the string of fragile, it's also the usual calm, soothing breeze in it, that lets Harry breathe out a large doze of air as if Zayn’s voice had the ability of blowing out the emptiness of his bones.

He tells Zayn the same thing, how it’s all jetlag’s fault and he just looked for a night talk as they did in the bus tank so it’d be easier to fall asleep and he hears that Zayn smiles then, at least it sounds like it. And Harry would like to think that he knows it now, the sound of Zayn’s smile. He wonders why is he doing it though, not yelling at him, not sounding annoyed that Harry’s calling him at a mad time and what has Harry ever done to make Zayn always act so soft around him. So protective and gentle and all those things that made Harry miss him in the first place. Miss him even if he was around, miss that vibe he felt when there were only the two of them.

So Harry talks empty things for a while, Zayn just humming in response, his cheek pressed at the pillow so the muffled sounds make his voice even softer than it usually is when he’s all dozy. Talks about the tour and how he misses that stuff and asks if it’s okay to miss it all already. He knows how much Zayn wanted to go home during the last couple of weeks and wonders if he thinks Harry has gone crazy now. As if nine months of non-stop jumping around the stage and performing wasn’t enough.

“It’s been two days, Harry,” Zayn says with a following, load yawn.

“I know,” Harry sighs and rapidly pulls the paws of Zayn’s sweater further so his left fist is completely buried in it, knuckles wrapped in the warm material.

“Well, it’s not a crime to miss something. You’re in a new place, you just have to make it feel like home, mate.”

_Mate._

“Maybe I should sleep in my kitchen.”

"Whatever helps you?" Zayn sounds puzzled and Harry groans in a painful sigh right after.

“Hey, where's your tour pillow? You said you could sleep with it anywhere.”

“Gemma stole it when she went back home.”

"Oh," Zayn breaks into another somnolent yawn. "Is that you pouting I hear?"

"'m not," Harry grunts and rolls his bottom lip back to normal.

“How'bout sleeping pills?”

“Gross.”

“Can’t help you then.”

Harry pouts once more and bites down his thumb before speaks out again.

 “Well, I sort of have your sweater. I’m actually wearing it now,” he confesses and hears the bit of misery in his own voice. And for a short second he thought that Zayn would laugh, but no. Of course he's not.

“Which one?”

“The black one.”

“With prints?”

“Without. The knitted one.”

“Isn’t that in my suitcase?”

“I really hope it’s not, because what the fuck am I wearing then.”

Zayn laughs, almost lively this time and Harry hides his nose in the collar again, lets the smell of it, smell of Zayn  along the sound of his laugh travel down his throat and chest. Let's a proper wave of warmth heat his lungs.

“You know, you could’ve stolen a better one,” Zayn rambles drowsily.

“But it still smells like your old cologne.”

“You don’t like the new one?”

“No, I just. You know,” Harry stutters, thinking about how not to destroy everything in a single slip out of the wrong words.

“I do?”

“It smells like the old you, I guess.”

“There’s no old me, Harry.”

“The old us. Maybe that’s what it is,” Harry smiles weakly and before he gets to the terrifying realization that he's said it out loud, Zayn's voice cuts through like an ice breaking.

“There’s no such thing as well.”

“Obviously,” Harry says and immediately lets go of the paws, that automatically reveal his right hand and Zayn’s ring settling down on his forth finger. He sighs, then rolls eyes at himself and how much he holds on to these things.

Of course Zayn would assert that there’s no such thing as the new or old them, mainly because there is no  _them_  at all. It’s just Harry, holding on to ridiculous things like Zayn’s sweaters and rings and his old USA bandana that still smells like pineapple tobacco from those  _sunset-to moonlight-to sunrise_  balcony nights. Ridiculous and always with that sort of fruition that Harry would wake up the next morning with his heart in its right place for once, a warm complete feeling before his fingertips would meet the cold and slick sheets. Then, it all gone in less than a second, with a glance, a single wave of his lashes - that other side of him.

“Go back to sleep, Harry,” Zayn mutters and Harry imagines those firm lashes waving slowly and heavily, leaving dark shadows at the edges of his cheekbones. 

“I can’t, remember? That’s why I’m calling you.”

“You should have taken one of those paintings when i offered.”

“Ew. Are they all still that creepy?,” Harry frowns recalling the ones across Zayn’s bedroom wall, that he supposedly bought to make it more homelike. Just as Harry asked his cupboards to be painted green, Zayn did it with the weirdest choices of art work that he claimed helped him in sleepless nights. Not that Harry would’ve ever seen Zayn suffering from them. Not like Harry did anyway.

“None of them, actually?” Zayn sounds offended.

“You should’ve just done the graffiti thing in your bedroom as well.”

“Pink robots across my bed, how mature.”

“Still would be better than that gray one. What was it there, a snake or something?”

“A snake in the woods!”

“More of a rope to me. How don’t you suffer from serial killer nightmares?”

“Well, you're the one being wide awake at three am here, not me?”

“Jetlag!” Harry lies.

“Hmm,” Zayn hums with a knowing grin in his voice.

Harry smiles without a reason then, but maybe that was it. Them just talking like that, nothing important, nothing rushed. He feels like he should hang up then, before Zayn says it first, but then looks out at the odd stars and the dark sky reminds him of the picture on his phone.

“Remember Miami?” Harry bursts out, not thinking again.

“’Course I do.”

 “There was this really nice view, remember?”

“Are we really going to talk about views now, Harry.”

“No, it’s not about views, actually. It’s about what you said when we were up there.”

Zayn doesn’t say a thing and Harry isn’t quite sure anymore if he wishes that he would stay awake for this or not.

“How we shouldn’t be allowed to regret things, to just jump and everything,” Harry says and the night is sort of behind his eyes then. The view, the tobacco clouds and those inked lips on Zayn’s chest being close, so very close.

“I said that?”

“Yeah.”

“Oh. Where did I want to jump?”

“Anywhere. You don’t remember?”

“Well not the jumping part, no.”

“Anything else?”

“Harry, you know I do.”

“Do what?”

“Remember.”

“Remember what you said?”

“No, not really. But your cinnamon bubble gum, that I do. It tasted like dirt.”

Harry bites down his lip and laughs before opens up his eyes and the smile of his lips fades away slowly, unwillingly.

“I need to ask you something about that.”

“Anything.”

 “Do you think I should jump? Or just give up on it?”

“ _It_?”

“It.  _Someone_.”

There's another short silence and Harry knows that Zayn gets the idea. But he also knows that he would never come clean, not like this. On the phone and exhausted, with his mind all blurry and disordered.

“Well, is  _someone_  worth jumping for?” Zayn asks and Harry wonders if that’s what Zayn was waiting for all along. “You know, worth a fight?”

Harry sweeps the skin of his thumb over the ring once, twice and another few times before lies back down in the pile of pillows with his eyes shut down. He clenches fingers around his phone and suddenly realizes how bloody tired he is from all of this, and he doesn't mean the physical fatigue now. Harry knows that Zayn knows, it’s all so obvious, yet he still plays his game like this. Calling it  _someone’s_  and claiming that he doesn’t remember. And he wonders, remorsefully, how much longer could he do it, how many times he could jump alone.

 “A war,” Harry says it at last and spins the ring one last time before it slips down off his finger in the sheets, “someone is worth a war, actually.”

Zayn holds his breath and then coughs in a way that people do when they try to clear their throats, to avoid a crack in their voice, but it’s so silent that Harry isn’t sure if he even heard it.

 “That much, yeah?” Zayn asks and Harry definitely hears it this time, the tiny bit of scratch in his voice.

“That much,” Harry affirms.

“Then I think... I think never.”

“Never?”

“Never.”

~

Harry knew that it’s one of those nights, one of those special ones. He saw it in Zayn’s eyes.

They laugh with their heads thrown back and share a joint that Harry usually didn’t enjoy much except when it was with Zayn who loosened up from it on a level that Harry thought he might as well levitate if he really wanted to. The way he became so incredibly ethereal and restless, so easy to read, like there had never been that shell of mystery and inscrutability overlaid the shine of his amber eyes. Just the two of them away from the world like this. Like _this_ , he couldn’t love that feeling more, like there is no other space than the one that they share. So when the breeze overcomes the last of the warmness of evening's sunset, it seems almost odd to feel the cold in his bones. Like it shouldn’t be that it exists, something not enjoyable, the wind having it’s free way between the two of them and that’s also when Harry realizes why he loves these nights more than anything. Because Zayn caught a look in Harry’s eye, caught his little lip dribble and knee shaking and knew that they shouldn’t be cold that night as well and nodded, a barely invisible move.

Nodded and crawled over the side of the balcony to sit down in between Harry’s thighs, back leaned in his chest and head rested in the warm crave between his shoulder and neck. And Harry could’ve hated it, but also loved it when Zayn did things like this. When he was clueless of what to say or if it's even necessary to say something at all, he just did things, like patted your back in the most softest yet supportive way or gently massaged the cape of your neck to help you breathe properly again. Or sometimes, when he felt brave enough from the smoke acting on his brain, he did such awfully wonderful things like this. Just crawled inside of you, sat down as close as it's possible to make Harry feel warm and safe, and calm. And loved.

“You know what I wish,” he blows out the thick cloud of smoke, cautiously tilting his head from side to side, “I wish we would never look back.”

 “What'd you mean?” Harry asks, repeatadly digging his nose into Zayn’s shoulder blade.

“I mean, regrets are the worst things, aren’t they?”

“I guess,” Harry murmurs while listens to the inquisitiveness in Zayn's tone and reassures to himself that from the countless sides of Zayn that he’s had a chance to get to know of through the years, he, without a doubt, loved this one the most. Meditative, along the line of a pleasant ecstasy and always in the middle of a contemplation about global questions like poverty or why can’t we remember our dreams clearly or how the planet system works.

“We just shouldn’t be allowed to do it, to regret something. So that we would be fearless, you know? Just jump.”

“Jump? You want to jump?” Harry hums the questions lazily, his mouth pressed at Zayn’s clavicle then.

Zayn chuckles lightly, throwing his head back and looking at Harry in upside down.

“Sometimes I do.”

Harry doesn’t breathe then, Zayn looking at him in that intriguing, bulletproof way only he ever did, lashes waving like those palms in the wind at the beach. He's beautiful, Harry thinks, unforgivably gorgeous. And it's so fucking unfair, Harry concludes for like the hundredth of time. It's simply unfair that he has to share someone like Zayn with the rest of the world when they own moments like this.

“I’d jump with you.”

“Oh babe, I'd give you no choice!” Zayn laughed again and blew an air kiss in Harry’s direction, then straightened back up.

And even if it was an air kiss, Harry considers it as a small invitation, because what the hell. Regrets _do_ suck, they suck so much, that it’s more than that, he realizes. It’s a real pain and sort of nervousness about that gut feeling when you know you could’ve done it, could’ve gone further, but never did. And is it either the smoke or the delight warmness that Zayn’s back channels to Harry’s chest, but he feels it like there won’t be any other chance ever again. And he was right about that.

 _“_ It looks like the world stops here, doesn’t it,” Zayn muses dreamily, “like there is no further no backwards, y'know? Just that ocean and then it's the end. A paradise behind it, maybe.”

Harry looks down at him and the admiration in his eyes, so passionate, like the way he looked when he had his first flight with the boys, staring through the small window down at the clouds and the tiny building outlines, mumbling ‘this is amazing’ over and over again. Or the way his eyes shined when he did scrambles on the sides of piper, tiny, but detailed to the smallest bits.

And my God, how could Harry resist that feeling and not to want it so much, so much that it tickles inside of every one of his bones and flashes through his veins like a little devil of inducement running and throwing saltos there.

So he doesn’t even properly observe the idea, just tilts his head and shifts lower to reach after Zayn’s lips from behind, but has to stop right before they were less than an inch apart because Zayn has turned at him then, lips parted in a skew smile and a stare directed at Harry that asks if he’s mad.

“What?” Harry tries to sound as innocent as it is possible with his voice shaking uncontrollably.

“Were you going to kiss me?” Zayn teases in a truthful confusion.

“Maybe.”

Zayn snorts, but then, much to Harry's surprise, lets the grin turn into a greedy kind of expression as he palms Harry's chin; his left thumb stroking the bottom lip.

“Why'd you want to do that?”

Harry swallows hard, barely swallows at all. Is there any logical answer to this? Is there _any_ answer at all?

“Because, be-... because…," Harry stutters terrified. "Because you smell pretty?” Harry shrugs and feels his spirit leaving his body from the embarrassment right after. _Because you smell pretty_?!

But Zayn laughs in response, loud and bright, and genuine and nothing in this world could make Harry's burning cheeks chill back to a human temperature faster than the sound of that cheerful laughter, clinking the entire balcony. He doesn't say a word though, just removes his hand from Harry's face and looks away to take another drag from the smoke. Harry takes a deep breath and gathers the last of his common sense to stare down at Zayn once more and oh, my. The way the Miami sunset colors enlightens his face shapes is magical. Pink lines in his hair and yellow dots on his cheeks, the look of it so playful and exotic that Harry has to lick his lips twice before he could say something again.

“And. _Because_ we shouldn’t’ be allowed to regret anything, was that it?”

Zayn looked back at him then, the smile slowly disappearing as his eyes jumped on a quick leak on Harry’s lips then right back on the green ones staring at him.

“Right,” he says, slowly.

"And I don’t want to," Harry pauses. "Do you?"

For a split second Zayn's brows go down and he looks at him like he’s someone else, but quickly enough, goes back to grinning, blowing the smoke right in Harry’s face, the pineapple aroma all over his skin.

“Okay, so. Because I smell pretty?”

Harry knows that tone of his voice. That foxy sort of sound that has never lead to simple things before. Ever. But he's too close.

“Yes. And because tonight is too fucking beautiful to let go of it just like that,” Harry says and looks at Zayn, at the small birthmark on his nose and the keen line of his jaw. “And so are you.”

Zayn’s lips secede, but then closes back again, his eyes looking like two bullets, the spark in them quick and sharp.

“Me?”

“You.”

He does it again, opens his mouth to say something, but either it was the smoke he was holding between his fingers or just because of the confusion, he closes it back once again. Harry knows there's no way back, really, he's gone too far now.

“I know I’m mad, but am I really the only one like that here? And if we shouldn’t regret things, if we’re really never going back, then why would we pretend…”

And he shuts it there, he _has_ to shut it when the thought and sound of the sentence drowned smoothly in Zayn’s mouth. Dry and soft lips, all at once, Harry knew it right then and there that it’s what he was afraid of, all he was ever dreaming of and way more. It was that pineapple tobacco, it was something between bitter and sweet, something like home and something that Harry never knew he was missing in his life, but when he tasted it, he wasn’t sure how he could’ve been functioning without it on his lips. Something so delicious that when his tongue slipped deeper to taste it all, he almost had to break it with a gasp.

Something undefinable, again. Just like those words in movies, fate, soul mates and stuff.

He isn't sure if he’s kissing Zayn or the other way around but his arm is somehow rapped around Zayn’s neck and he feels fingers in his hair and Harry has to think about it somewhere at the back of his head, that it couldn’t be it. It couldn’t be the bottom phase, the deepest of that feeling because it just feels like it’s all starting right here and now, a fresh breath. And in this second Harry might’ve thought that there’s nothing more beautiful than giving that bit of corner of your heart to someone else, to kiss it, mark it on other’s lips.

“Regretting this?” Harry whispers after, their foreheads pressed together as he stares down at Zayn’s parted mouth.

“Never.”

“Never?”

“ _Never_.”

~

“Aren’t you tired yet?” Zayn asks when Harry begs him not to hang up just yet after they’ve moved over the Miami thing to Australia and Japan and all the most colorful memories.

“As hell, but I rather talk to someone.”

“Call Louis then?”

“He never answers at night," Harry frowns. "Sometimes just to promise to kill me on the next day and then hangs up.”

“Why haven’t I ever tried that,” Zayn yawns with a sound that reminds more of an animal roar than an actual human at this point.

“Because you love me too much?”

“No. Well yes, but not enough to make this last another twenty minutes. Goodnight, babe.”

_Babe._

“Wait, who should I talk to then?” Harry practically yells at the phone.

“Yourself.”

“What?”

“Talk to yourself. Just don’t answer yourself back,” Zayn purrs lazily, half asleep. "Think, that's one of your tweets said, yeah, smarty curls?"

Harry frowns shortly before bursts in a laugh, pressing a palm to his mouth to quiet himself, but ends up in a gasp as his lips meet the cold of Zayn’s ring.

He isn’t really sure why he’s laughing this energetically, but it doesn't even matter anymore, even if he's gone mad now. What's important and what's satisfying for now, is that for a short moment he feels that the part of him that is right there in Zayn, sleeping under the inked wings on his chest, is maybe supposed to be there. Always with him, stucked there as long as it drops elsewhere and that just means it’s all alright, for now. A part of him safe, missing and teaching him how to fight with emptiness, but. It’s there.

There’s a long silence then, only the sound of Zayn’s soft snores and deep breaths that Harry listens to for some good five minutes before hangs up.

And maybe it’s not that horrible to own only a half of your heart when the other one is safely laid down at Zayn’s place, Harry concludes and falls asleep within less than five breaths himself.

The next morning he wakes up with a laugh. A joke or not, he is almost sure that he dreamed about a bunch of gray snakes in the woods so he might as well borrow that horrible painting from Zayn.


End file.
